Sunday, 21 July 2013

Chocolate mousse cake and a trip to York

For me, this cake is a wish-list of all the best things
baking with chocolate can provide.
Chocolate biscuit base? Yep.
Layer of rich brownie? Yeah, it’s got one of those. Chocolate mousse? Of
course! Whippy cream to set it all off? Mai oui...and even some chocolate pigs
frolicking on the top! Somebody pinch
me; I must be dreaming.

Now this looks pretty fancy and you do need to organise
yourself to get the stages done (with waiting time between them) but there is
nothing complicated here at all. If you
can whisk and fold then you can make what is a very sophisticated looking
dessert. Also, in this heatwave, it
doesn’t require a lot of oven time.

I kept the brownie all dark chocolate but used a mix of dark
and milk chocolate for the mousse, simply because I prefer a less bitter
mousse. But you can tinker and tailor it
to your tastebuds!

Often with recipes that use a 23cm tin, I’ll ignore the
instruction and use my 20cm tin as I prefer a taller cake. Don’t try that with this recipe as it is a
huge cake even when made in the 23cm tin.
This could happily feed a large gathering for dessert and perhaps even
leave you some for the next day...I must admit it is rather rich, even though I
feel feeble for saying so.

Mr CC and I had a lovely long weekend in York. We went there for a daytrip last year and
realised that the City needed more than that to discover all the gems it has to
offer. It is a truly historic town with
wonderful architecture wherever you look.
Here’s the Minster (I wasn’t drunk, I went for an arty angle to omit the
scaffolding around the top of the left hand tower!)

Right that’s the travel guide over with – now to the
important stuff! To visit York is to
fall in love with Bettysthe
famous tea rooms; I use the plural because in York you have big Bettys:

And little Bettys (it hurts me not to use an apostrophe but
that’s how it is!)

Being keen to immerse myself in local culture I had to try
both. I had a quick cup of tea and a fat
rascal in little Bettys while Mr CC was off looking at trains in the National
Railway Museum (I think I got the better of that particular deal!). I have read much about the legendary fat
rascal – a cross between a scone and a rock bun, and the window display only
got me more excited:

What I didn’t know is that they are served warm and eaten
with butter (it just gets better!)

We visited big Bettys for the formal afternoon tea. Even the menu was beautiful and in-keeping with the art deco style of the tea room:

The afternoon tea was classic and elegant – no putting savoury
herbs in sweet tarts here; rather a lovely selection of tried and tested
combinations such as lemon meringue, chocolate and caramel...I wish other
afternoon tea venues would take note.

It wasn’t all about Bettys though; we found a lovely little
cafe – Bennett’s - right by York Minster (on High Petergate) and thoroughly
enjoyed their Yorkshire classics of gingerbread and curd tart.

To prove we didn’t live off cake for the weekend
here’s a plate of wholesome goodness from Wackers (on Gillygate), York’s
biggest and best loved fish and chip restaurant. The fish and chips is fried in beef
dripping....mmm, beef dripping!

Line the sides of 23cm round springform tin with baking
paper of re-usable silicon liner.

Place the biscuits and butter into the food processor and
blitz until you have claggy crumbs. If
you use a processor there is no need to melt the butter. Alternatively, you can melt the butter and
beat the biscuits to crumbs in a plastic bag then mix together. As the biscuits are chocolate and filled with
cream I think the processor is the way to go, if you can.

Press the base into the prepared tin and refrigerate for 30
mins.

Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 160°C/fan oven 140°C/325°F/gas
mark 3.

Put the base in the oven (straight from the fridge) and cook
for 10 minutes.

Remove from the oven and leave to cool.

Increase the oven to 180°C/fan oven 160°C/350°F/gas mark 4.

Now make the cake layer: place the chocolate, rum, butter
and salt into a saucepan and melt over a very gentle heat, stirring often.

When the chocolate has all melted add the sugar and stir
rapidly. At first the mix will look and
feel gritty but then you will feel the sugar crystals dissolve even though the
mix will still look granular.

Remove the pan from the heat and whisk in the eggs one at a
time.

Whisk in the golden syrup.

Whisk in the flour.

Your batter will be very thick and runny – like a brownie
batter.

Pour the batter over the biscuit base and cook for 30-35
minutes or until the cake looks baked but still has a little squidge in the
centre.

Leave to cool completely – in the tin – on a wire rack.

Now make the mousse layer: heat the cream in a saucepan
until it is at scalding point i.e. almost but not quite boiling.

Remove from the heat and place the chocolate, broken into
squares, into the cream. Leave for a
couple of minutes before stirring.

Leave to cool for 5 minutes or so before whisking in the egg
yolks. If the mix is too hot the eggs
might start to cook and the mix will look ugly.

In a separate bowl whisk the egg whites with the icing sugar
until they are stiff.

Take a spoon of the whites and whisk into the chocolate mix –
this will slacken the chocolate and make it easier to fold in the remaining
whites.

Fold together the chocolate and egg whites making sure you
stop as soon as they are combined – over folding will knock air out of the
mousse.

Spoon over the cake and chill for a minimum of 2 hours but
ideally overnight.

On the day of serving whip the cream and icing sugar and
spoon into a messy blob on top of the mousse.

Cake looks so yummy! This goes to my baking list, thanks for sharing the recipe! I've been to York some 20 yrs ago, I just loved it although I got lost from my friends for a while. I hope go there again one day.

Wowzer that is one amazing cake! Sounds like you had a great trip - York is beautiful. I went to the Harrogate Betty's and had a fat rascal there but have been wanting to go back for afternoon tea, it looks lovely.

You have done it again girl. You have made me dribble on my desk! Want that cake NOW!I am off to York soon. Already looking forward to my teas at Betties (we go to both). We spent our Honeymoon there so it holds a schpecial place for us.Hugsxx

Lovely pictures, as ever. I went to Uni in York 40 years ago, and Bettys is just the same, (although I am sure it had an apostrophe then!!) I love going back to visit, and have a ritual itinerary - coffee in Little Bettys after arrival, followed by a visit to M&S, then lunch in big Bettys.

I have enjoyed exactly the same Fat Rascal, (never seen in any other establishment).

I have a recipe, which I cut out of Waitrose Magazine. I haven't tried it, but can pass it on if you would like it.

Read my novel! Yes! I wrote it!

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I am a 40-something Chartered Accountant working in the square mile.
My main hobbies at the moment are baking, and setting the world record for the number of cake tins owned by one person.
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